Barely half of Weston General Hospital staff would be happy with the standard of care offered there if a family or friend needed treatment.

The ‘disappointing’ staff survey figures show confidence in treatment has dropped within Weston Area Health NHS Trust (WAHT) personnel over the past 12 months.

Similarly, only 46 per cent of employees would recommend the hospital as a place to work.

Alex Nestor, director of human resources for WAHT, admits work must be done to make improvements.

She said: “The results of the latest NHS Staff Survey are very disappointing and show that we have a lot of work to do to improve the working lives of our staff.”

Every year staff are handed out a questionnaire to fill out to show how they feel the hospital is performing.

The results, published at this month’s board meeting, show a decline in the number of people who agreed or strongly agreed the hospital was a good place to work or receive care.

Only 55 per cent of staff said they would be happy with the standard of care on offer for a loved one – down from 58 per cent as recorded in the 2016 survey.

"The results of the latest NHS Staff Survey are very disappointing and show that we have a lot of work to do."

Alex Nestor WAHT director of human resources

Three in five employees felt the hospital acted on patients’ concerns – down from 70 per cent – while less than two-thirds of respondents believed the trust makes patient care its top priority.

The figures place Weston hospital in the bottom 20 per cent when compared with trusts of a similar size elsewhere in the country.

Ms Nestor said: “We want to support our staff to perform their roles to the best of their ability and support them to stay well.

“We are therefore pulling together a wide-ranging plan which will include leadership support for managers and team leaders, a range of initiatives to help our staff stay well, and the roll out of a programme that enables staff to raise concerns in real time and to more areas of the trust.”

The survey also revealed 42 per cent of staff saw ‘potentially harmful errors, near misses or incidents’ occur in the month leading up to completing the survey. The national average is below one in three.

WAHT also performed worse than average in terms of the proportion of staff experiencing bullying or abuse from patients or relatives last year and for good communication from senior management.